понедељак, 29. новембар 2010.

the lists: 2001


1. Anathema - A Fine Day To Exit (Music For Nations)

Vanja and Pera were going to a Sziget festival where Anathema was playing. I couldn't go but a friend of mine was kind of enough she brought me Danny's autograph. She went to Sziget with her friend Maxa and it was soon after Sziget on some gig in Belgrade where we met for the first time.That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship...

Vanja and Pera not only watched Anathema but did an interview with Danny as well. We aired it at Stevie's Alternova show and aired one brand new track as well. I was a regular guest at Alternova (it was aired on radio Politika on Fridays from 7 to 9 PM i think) so this Sziget fest special was a real treat. A Fine Day Yo Exit was to be released in September or October but Pera got hold of the promo CD from Danny in August. In era of slow downloading, getting a promo CD two months prior to the actual release was pretty much flattering.

I was one of the rare ones that really liked the album. Old goth fans bitched about the "alternative leftfield road" the band was having. It was obvious that bands such as Radiohead or Portishead were influencing the band and the music was all good, so why give a flying fuck what genre it would be named after?

Temporary Peace was, and still is, one of my favorite Anathema tracks - maybe the favorite one of them all. Barriers was another Anathema ballad that Danny sang, not Vinnie, and it was a bit weirder and more experimental than say, Angelica or Lost Control. Underworld was this rockier one and Panic was sort of Empty part 2. Looking Outside Inside and Leave No Trace were those excellent tracks that weren't grabbing the listener on the first hook. The only song I didn't like that much was the opener, Pressure. There was even a video clip that was made for this track but the media such as MTV refused to air it cause it was "too slow" (or some bollocks like that). It will be years later Haavard would tell me (when he would visit Belgrade with Antimatter) that Pressure wasn't made to be the album opener but the instrumental track, much heavier one, that got lost during the recordings or something.

Anyway, Anathema missed the next step of breaking new grounds and getting new audience and that surely brought them some disappointments. Sometime in 2002 Danny announced he was leaving Anathema and that wanted to join Duncan Patterson in Antimatter. That was during the Spring and I still remember that period well cause I did this graduation work at the end of fourth grade in high school for English class, named Anathema - An Enigma No More. After presenting the work in public, I played One Last Goodbye on my guitar. The second guitar was played by Miloš Savić, who was also playing in Consecration at that time. I could play the song on my own, but I wanted to play this big solo as well so I wanted someone to back me up with the chords while the solo was played. What an attention whore I was back then. Anyway, the teacher was thrilled and she was really ace person as well. She told me she felt really privileged to witness that kind of graduation work presentation cause no one did anything similarly original ever before. I told her that I loved this band so much that I wanted the others to feel that love too.


2. Katatonia - Last Fear Deal Gone Down (Peaceville)

Katatonia broke some new grounds with this album. Finally. They were making some hit singles as well, as Teargas and Tonight's Music were grabbing you with these opium scented claws, only to caress you with them the next second when the catchy chorus arrived.

The production was more organic and the drums were higher/heavier in the mix.  They got the real drummer this time. Not that before he wasn't real, this one was the one whose drums playing was his top priority. The bassist was added too, so the band could do a first proper tour upon releasing this one. Last Fear Deal Gone Down would be also the last Katatonia album to be recorded on analogue tape.

Katatonia were gaining fans quickly across the globe, although their fan spreading fever wasn't as quick as Opeth's were; the fans Katatonia got would seem to show more loyalty in the future and not just the in thing that was characteristic for Opeth (or any metal band that came out of the blue and gained instant success). Katatonia were more underground and less metal.

We Must Bury You was this great track that showed the band wasn't afraid to experiment with loops and electronica. Sweet Nurse and The Future Of Speech showed lots of interesting guitar techniques of Anders for creating layers and layers of sounds, something that wasn't as evident before. The lyrics were also more introverted than ever and the listeners just couldn't help themselves but to feel sympathetic enough to involve in all of them. (how could this go so very far / that i need someone to say / what is wrong / not with the world but me)


3. Radiohead - Amnesiac (Capitol)

So much balls to this album. Amnesiac was recorded at the same time with Kid A sessions and the band showed even more experiments and progressesed even further with this one. Packt Like Sardines In A Crushd Tin Box resembled the minimalism of Everything In Its Right Place with more accent on the beat and not on the synth, while Pyramid Song showed Radiohead in all their glory with the grand piano and the drumming  that could be described as majestic - when the ride cymbal gets in I simply shiver in awe every single time I hear it. Pyramid Song is one of the best Radiohead tracks ever made, creating a perfect antidote to Idioteque, another marvelous track from the previous offering.

Knives Out is another jazzy kind of track that just has a nice drive to it with already-infamous voice of Yorke waving over the chords. I Might Be Wrong reintroduces the sinister analog synth feel while the band explores silence and minimalism of the single amp/single guitar while the room is breathing itself in Hunting Bears, not too far off Neil Young's Dead Man motion picture soundtrack. Amnesiac is a twin brother of Kid A and those two albums together present few of the albums that truly marked the 00's in music.


4. Opeth - Blackwater Park (Music For Nations)

They did it again. And what a breakthrough album this was. Mikael and Peter were starting getting features in Guitar World and such magazines and it was really a sign that Opeth finally became huge. According to Blackwater Park, they fully deserved it.

The only track I didn't like so much was the opener, The Leper Affinity. But the rest was ace. Bleak was an instant hooker, while The Drapery Falls summed up all the stuff Opeth were about. I remember we were in studio with Nikola Vranjkovic recording Amaranth that summer and we swapped CD's. I lent him Blackwater Park and he borrowed me the next album on this very list below. Vranjkovic's reply upon hearing The Drapery Falls was, this was the best song ever recorded by anyone ever, with a significant smile all over his face.

The production of the album was top notch. I don't think anyone could top what these guys achieved with this one. Steven Wilson was the name being mentioned too in the credits, as some strange guy who helped them with the vocals and the production. Soon enough the fanboys would find out that the same Steven Wilson had his own band as well, named Porcupine Tree.

The marriage of Morbid Angel and Nick Drake sounded ridiculous on paper, but Mikael and the guys nailed it. Whatever "genre" they decided to play, be it death metal, acoustic folk, frosty black metal or some good ol' doom riff a la Sabbath played in modern style with modern production - they all fucking nailed it. This was also the second time I heard of the amp called Laney being used during the recordings. Hmmmm.


5. Tool - Lateralus (Volcano)

Nikola Vranjkovic played me Parabola in studio one day while we were setting up the stuff for Amaranth recordings - I was blown away by the song. I heard of the band before but didn't care much checking them out. I was subscribed to Terrorizer at the time and they were all seriously raving about this new album, so I was curious to check them out. The mistique around them I liked and it was obviously doing them some favors - I was not the only one thinking that way.

This whole album was something new to me. It contained the prog of one King Crimson but played in modern times with tons of metal riffs. Yummy. The voice I did like very much too, as he was giving the music another dimension, adding more of this depth and not just being a regular rock-star-so-much-in-front-of-every-other-instrument vibe. The music was meaningful and when the voice got in, the music was getting more meaningful and important as well. The voice was giving favors to the music itself; the music was not just backing up the singer and that approach was something that bought me instantly. Let's say I became at least interested in what were Tool doing.

And what a band it was - the drummer was insane with this polyrhythmic stuff, the bassist was grooving like hell, and what I liked the most was this guitar style of Adam Jones that married Jimmy Page, some Metallica riffing and lots of King Crimson.

I checked out the back catalog soon. I liked Aenima too - but the impact Lateralus had on me this first time could not be repeated with any other Tool record, ever. It's always the first albums you hear that kick you the hardest...


6. Neurosis - A Sun That Never Sets (Relapse)

This was a strong one. If the previous Times Of Grace was this bursting fire that broke through the walls, A Sun That Never Sets was this warm fire that stayed through the night and had this silvery shining pulsing red stones all over the ashes.

Neurosis got more serious, more old and -more heavy. The hidden strength of The Tide and the title track - the whole album actually - were all only the introduction to Stones From The Sky, a closing track that had such a strong climax it is probably the most convincing climax ever done on any recording.

Steve Von Till and Scott Kelly were discovering their voices again and all what they could do with clean singings. This record was more Willard Grant Conspiracy and Anathema then say, Swans or Crass. The lyrics were going deeper into the blood and its roots visualizing all the songs off the album on DVD, making A Sun That Never Sets an overall transitional release to the more silent waters of the future.



7. Maudlin Of The Well - Bath / Leaving Your Body Map (Dark Symphonies)

Just when you thought there was nothing else that could be said and played concerning the doom metal stuff, this showed up. American bands were always late with giving the answers to the European underground metal genres that were popular, were it doom, black, goth or whatever. But these two records were so special and fresh it was pretty much joyful to step into their ambiguous realms.

Maudlin were doing doom with jazzy style, prog with atmospheric pieces, bonded by metal. And every combination was tasteful. Saxophone, trumpets and all other unusual instruments for metal music were never used or played by force. Every song had a characteristic moon and the mirror concept of two records reflected pretty well on the lyrics as well.

The Blue Ghost/Shedding Qliphoth was this perfect opener off the Bath, with the right mood set while the following They Aren't All Beautiful married prog with death metal; leading only to Heaven And Weak, the most delightful track off the first disc. At the other hand, Stones Of October's Sobbing was the second disc opener and while it resembled some of the Bath's opening sequences, it was a beast of its own. It was my favorite track for some time. Leaving Your Body Map was a bit heavier album, the Bath being a lighter one. I prefered Body Map a bit at the time I got these albums, although right now I'd maybe be into Bath a bit more.

Both albums were hidden jewels that didn't reveal their secrets easily, also an essential listen to every open-minded person who knew the European scene well. It would be just plain wrong to call these albums experimental, cause those bunch of guys obviously knew what they were doing. And they were doing it so convincingly they would evolve even further on a couple of years later.


8. Aphex Twin - Drukqs (Warp)

This man was insane. Insanely creative. There's so much stuff that could be said about sir Richard. The man sort of invented braindance genre (rather called IDM by the press) with his fantastic debut Selected Ambient Works 85-92 he made at his own flat accompanied with lots of analogue synths, cheap 303's and cats who used to gnaw some of the tapes as well. It is one of my favorite ambient records ever, along with two first Autechre albums (Incunabula and Amber). I Care Because You Do excelled at playing with the analogue stuff, while Richard D. James showed sir Richard's newfound love for software vs. hardware, united against human race.

Come To Daddy and Windowlicker were those great-songs-that-turned-to-a-great-joke thanks to Chris Cunnigham who directed the clips. The two singles became huge in the media and sir Richard knew what he was doing. He made those songs hit singles rather consciously to break huge in the charts and even noted later that he was responsible for stopping the further represses of Come To Daddy - he saw it topping the charts and didn't want for it to become too popular.

Drukqs were long awaited. Sir Richard confessed later that it was a rushed record a bit. At one occasion he left the demo tapes on some plane and he was afraid of a leak on the net before the actual release. So he sat down and rushed the finishing touches a bit to have the Drukqs released before the leaks started.

Drukqs is a great album. Although it was a bit longish (30 songs over two discs), it showed every virtue of sir Richard yet. Gwely Mernans was this great ambient track that reminded of ambient works of past. MT Saint Michel+Saint Michaels Mount was this jungle-meets-drum n' bass beast that halfway through a slaughterhouse suddenly stopped and went through the passage of analogue light reminiscent of I Care Because You Do. Kesson Daslef, Jynweythek and Avril 14th were those little piano pieces that showed emotional side of Richard - and it showed much more in a single minute than some artists had over entire album. Afx237 V.7 was this piece that would become Rubber Johnny couple of years later, a rather sick video (in a nice sense), shot again by Cunningham. however, the opener Vordhosbn might be the best track on Drukqs, as halfway through the speedcore drill comes that melancholic synth melody so aphexesque it's unbelievable. Those kind of melodies and moods will be emphasized on future Analord records couple of years later.

This was one of the best albums ever made regarding electronica and I put it a bit lower in the list just because I discovered it a bit later. I put the other albums higher for rather nostalgic reasons. And obviously, sir Richard wouldn't be happy knowing something like this topped anyone's list.


9. Nærvær - Skiftninger (Prophecy)

This one was a moody one. Acoustic and calm, but centered around that mood so much the band gave their best to try to capture that mood on tape in studio. I read an interview in Terrorizer where they noted it was a bit stressful, trying to play the songs from the moods they had in their heads first, and then trying to have that captured forever on some piece of tape. It seemed like the guys knew what they were talking about, as one of them was Jan Transit of In The Woods. Skiftninger had some more visitors from the Woods camp - Synne Diana was a special guest on a couple of tracks and X.Botteri with his famous E-bow too.

Nylon strings were played and they were played well. Minimal and sparse yet so emotional, Dose Dager was perfect example - every time I listen to this song I get some weird nostalgia for times long past. Someone said that nostalgia was a dangerous thing in music. One might easily feel nostalgic about some music, but the essence of nostalgia in music was rare. And Naervaer were doing it. Some songs were sung in native Norwegian (or maybe not) and Vi Så'kke Land was great example of both researching silence with jazzy chords and discovering the groove within.

Not everything was moody, smiles were given too - one track was even named Bob Dylan Is The Fucking King, while others, such as Nummen were a perfect companion for a walk in the woods, or to the shore (similar to that cover of Anathema's Fine Day To Exit, although in a more rural environment). Nostalgia in music was rare indeed and Naervaer were masters of it.


10. Fantômas - The Director's Cut (Ipecac)

While I was DJ-ing in this shitty club Underworld for some time a couple of years ago, we always had the best time while playing Ave Satani, The Godfather, Rosemary's Baby or Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. I always played lots of Patton but the best party was with Fantomas - they rocked so much and played/put so much stuff in two minute songs it was a bliss to air rock with them together with some alcohol the seed.

There wasn't any funnier and more enjoyable album like this since Mr. Bungle's California. The covers of famous soundtracks the guys did were just plain awesome. The band was a supergroup consisting of Mike Patton and Trevor Dunn of Mr. Bungle, Buzzo of Melvins and Dave Lombardo of Slayer. The debut album was fun but too much abstract and bizarre at some places, yet this one was a real treat. Essential awesomeness of couple of geniuses enjoying themselves and making it funny for the rest of the world as well.


11. Of The Wand & The Moon - Emptiness Emptiness Emptiness (Euphonious)



12. Khanate - Khanate (Southern Lord)

This album was a fucking statement. This was how most tortured, horrible doom should sound. Atroicous vocals of Alan had to be heard to be believed. The feedbacks of Stephen O'Malley of Sunn O))) on guitar and James Plotkin on bass plus the powerful drumming, really delivered something monstrous.

I have the fondest memory of one of Lazar's famous armageddon parties where we used Pieces Of Quiet to clear the party up. One person left and it was Yeqy, our drummer. he was asleep whole time - we always wondered if he dreamed of anything during the Khanate song and what should that be... Well, some things weren't supposed to be known.

Khanate's debut is one of the most powerful doom (metal?), fuck it, extreme records ever made. If you're ever feeling too cheerful or thinking you might have problems, think again. Put this on and think again.

субота, 27. новембар 2010.

the lists: 2000


1. Saturnus - Martyre (Euphonious)

This was such a masterpiece of doom music. And Still is. I waited for this album like crazy. The first release date was sometime during the Autumn of 1999 but for some reason it was postponed for 31st january 2000. Maybe it had something to do with the rumors that Kim Larsen and the two guys from the rhythm section left the band even before the release of Martyre.

Anyway, I was amazed and mad with glee when I got it. Just holding the heavy CD with twenty pages of booklet in my hands was enough to know the album would be special. I was also so grateful for some reason when I realized that the opening track Inflame Thy Heart had only first two minutes of verse/chorus and growling vocals, while the rest five minutes of it were pure bliss with the solo of Kim Larsen, accompanied by some caressing keyboard pads.

This album had all the stuff I dreamed of, not only concerning Saturnus, but all the doom metal music ever made as well. The production duties were given to Flemming Rasmussen, the guy responsible for the perfect sounds of Metallica's Master Of Puppets and ...And Justice For All (yup, Flemming was Danish). The production was one of the best and everything sounded perfect - Thomas' growls were just wonderfully strong and the three guitar styles of Kim Larsen - 1. thunderous riffs coupled with leads/solos with lots of sustain, 2. clean guitars with added chorus effect and 3. close miked acoustic guitar - together with powerful Jesper's drumming, were all hitting you in the face only to embrace you next, depending on the arrangement of the song.

Softly On The Path You Fade is a doom hymnic-like ballad all metalheads of the world should hear. (Yeah, this statement sounds a bit like Manowar). Thou Art Free was rerecorded and sounded much better this time - more intimate and caring. Drown My Sorrow was another hit I played endlessly. Maybe I was a sad fucker back then but there were lots of times I just sat and cried to this album for whatever reason/frustration. It gave me this pure cathartic effect every time. No need to mention, I guess, that I still know all the album's lyrics by heart. And drum fills too.

Kim Larsen left the band for whatever reasons but was so nice to me everytime I mailed him. It was a couple of years later when I learned there was such a thing as email. I was this fanboy who wanted to mail all my favourite musicians to tell them how much their music meant to me and Kim was always ace and replied every time. I remember I asked him what gear he was using, and he replied with ESP Horizon being his guitar, Peavey 5150 the amp, Digitech Whammy pedal, along with some cheap delay pedal too. 2000 was the year I got my first electric guitar (more on that some other time) and that was also the first time I started to get info on the amps the guitarists I liked were using. On the other hand, the drummer's style was so good on Martyre I think this was the first album ever where I started to notice the drum arrangements and were playing air drums to the songs (whenever I wasn't playing songs on the guitar myself).

Martyre remains one of my dearest records ever and along with Anathema's The Silent Enigma it stands out as the best example of what European doom metal had to offer during the Nineties.


2. In The Woods... - Three Times Seven On A Pilgrimage (Prophecy)

This one was a surprising one. Only a year after Strange In Stereo came out, these Norwegians returned with a compilation of three EP's (White Rabbit, Let There Be More Light, Epitaph) and some new studio tracks as well.

Karmakosmik was one of those new tracks and a fantastic opener too. It was done in familiar In The Woods style, but with added cosmic depths, more than ever before. There was this time once when I took some acid and put this song on... It was the closest thing of experiencing the infinity, being on a brink of it, with slight return of madness shining from above. The thing that annoyed me a bit during the trip was that something was slightly out of tune, the guitars one with the other or something similar. That's also the song I named this blog after.

Epitaph was this King Crimson cover and I loved it. Intertwined voices of Jan and Synne never sounded better and her dynamics at the end of the song were leaving me breathless every time. The crazy heavily processed e-bow sounds of one of the Botteri twins on the guitar was also one of the sounds I could never forget. It was not long after listening to this cover I started checking out King Crimson's discography from their beginnings.

White Rabbit and Mourning The Death Of Aase were recorded back in 1996 even before Omnio and even though a bit rough as they were, the 70's spirit were all over those two. Metal version of Jefferson Airplane it was not, but a psychedelic heaven with added distortions from the future (80's metal era).

Soundtrax For Cycoz (1st Edition) was this great noisy piece with the guys toying with drum loops and atmosphere. It showed improved Strange In Stereo madness it's too bad there was never a 2nd Edition follow-up recorded. If It's In You was this acoustic piece, a cover of Syd Barret. It was not just a perfect closer, but the most intimate In The Woods song to date too. Just when you thought the band would choke in liquid smoke of hammond organ, voice and acoustic picking, the band would finally burst in laughter and left you catharticly calm. Perfect ending for a perfect band.


3. Radiohead - Kid A (Parlophone)

2000 was a strange year for me. Not only did I get my first electric guitar ever, I managed getting laid too (sweet, sweet sixteen). Maybe those were the two reasons I finally got more open minded, not only with metal but with other stuff in music genres as well.

Nikola Vranjkovic lent me this album and I fell on my ass when I heard it. By selling million copies of OK Computer they did the opposite thing of doing ten new Karma Police songs and did this hermetic record full of electronic warmth and analog heaven. Idioteque was and still is my favourite Radiohead song, Everything In Its Right Place and In Limbo being close enough. The ballad-like How To Disappear Completely contained some of the most interesting sonic textures, and it surely helped them evolve doing all the production experiments later.

Every track on Kid A was ace and Radiohead will always have my respect for having balls to do such a record.


4. Ulver - Perdition City (Music To An Interior Film) (Jester)

This was a calmer one. After the lucidness of William Blake's plates, the wolves announced this by releasing the Metamorphosis EP. Perdition City was imagined as this inner listener's soundtrack to the city at night, its buzzing neon lights and the noises they were making while the listener was crossing the desolate streets alone. They managed doing one.

This record was more of an open-ended record where Ulver began studying vastness of silence and all the stuff they could do with it. This silence fascination was confirmed later when they named a couple of EP's with it. It worked great because the previous Garm's works, be it Ulver, Arcturus or whatever, were so busy with stuff it was finally a relief to have so much space in music to be left open.

Nocturnal touch was helped by some saxophone playing - the urbanity of the city urged for heavy use of electronica too. Porn Piece Or The Scars Of Cold Kisses was the best example where they clashed the warmth of Rhodes piano with some electronic bleeps, glitches and loops, while some strings were backing all those up from the background. The Future Sound Of Music and Lost In Moments were also good examples where the nothing/everything differences worked, culminating with Nowhere/Catastrophe in the end and the major scale used in the chords, confirming the rich black sarcasm Garm was always good at.

Perdition City was a new chapter and a new beginning for Ulver. The likes of The Wire magazine loved it too.


5. The Gathering - if_then_else (Century Media)

This one was more of an urban answer to the previous How To Measure Planet?, which was more of a cosmic album. There was a huge SLOW DOWN sign in between the lines of all the lyrics on this album, concerning the consuming society and growing technology making everything in the world faster and thus impossible to keep an eye on.

Analog Park, Amity and especially Saturnine were the absolute highlights. Those three remain one of the best they've ever done. Herbal Movement and Bad Movie Scene were more relaxed ones while Shot To Pieces showed that this band could still rock if they wanted to.

Anneke was beautiful as ever, cutting her hair and dying it fiery red. Her voice showed more strength too and after this album the band would finally leave the label that was dragging them down for some time already.


6. Coldplay - Parachutes (Parlophone)

It was rare that I liked any mainstream pop band at this time (except if it was Bajaga), but Coldplay were the first ones I really liked. A very special someone gave me this album and I was instantly hooked. Coldplay played only slow songs and ballads and that's what got my attention in the first place.

This record made them popular but it wasn't until next one they'd get a planetary hype. Don't Panic and Yellow were the obvious favorites, but I liked Spies, High Speed and Sparks as much. The beauty was in simplicity and the songs were so simple you could play them on a single acoustic guitar. The voice of Chris Martin was very convincingly light and caring. He didn't get his full singing potential just yet, but those miniature flaws in raw production and few slips here and there made this record even more enjoyable and precious.

An ultimate record for a nice evening with your loved one.


7. Sigur Rós - Ágætis Byrjun (Fat Cat)

This was officially released in 1999 but it was released at the tail of 1999 and I discovered it a bit later so here it is with those 2000 companions.

This was one of those stranger records. It was definitely Radiohead influenced but with more ethereal/shoegaze touch of Icelandic vastness with icy mountains and cold blue seas.

There's a funny story when Lazar had a meeting with Cvele, and he was a couple of minutes earlier on the meeting spot. He had this album on his mp3 player and soon he discovered that the hopelessness of this record had dragged so much of itself onto him during those couple of minutes, Lazar suddenly lost willing to live, not to mention the Saturday-destruction-night-fever mood he was into just a couple of minutes before playing Agaetis.

That story might help you picture the state it would drag you in. So... This one is not appropriate for downer situations, only if you're feeling too cheerful. Either way you might want to destroy yourself.

Sigur Rós came out of blue (Radiohead chose them and Godspeed You Black Emperor! to be their support bands when they were promoting Kid A) and made a world a more beautiful place. Every track on Agaetis Byrjun was a good one, although the majority of fans preferred Starálfur, Svefn-G-Englar or Ný Batterí. And this was only a beginning.


8. Borknagar - Quintessence (Century Media)


9. Electric Wizard - Dopethrone (Rise Above)

This album was so heavy it was unhealthy. Sure, those solos of Danny Cavanagh and Kim Larsen had some sustain to them, but compared to Electric Wizard's riffs they sounded just, well, dead. Cause Electric Wizard's riffs had those sustains the whole fucking time. The riffs were so massive it sounded like the earthquake was shaking this fifty floored building for quite some time in slo mo, only for the building to discover it actually enjoyed it. And started to dance to it itself. I could only imagine sir Tony Iommi messing his pants a little upon hearing four bars of I, The Witchinder. I know that Lee Dorian of Cathedral did when he signed them for his own label.

This was the meanest fuzzed out slow doom one could get from the Brits. They gave us Black Sabbath, so the doom went full circle again with this one.




10. Bogus Blimp - Cords.Wires (Jester)

This record was so weird. It sounded like Frank Zappa gathered metalheads and made them do a record. Without guitars. In Norway.

Jester records (Ulver's own label) could give some hint of what would this sound like, but it was impossible to tell unless you heard the thing for yourself. There was something undeniably funny about the whole concept of this album - the dialogues, the music details in between those lines... It was like Cords.Wires was more of a radio drama than a full rocking album. On a radio on Mars aired for the Earthlings.

Brothers Of Space and By Five O'Clock Tea were those funnier ones (Terrorizer even played Max Cavalera Five O'Clock Tea and he replied he would buy the whole album if it all sounded like that song), but Sugar And Fear and especially Making Room For God were darker beasts, adding melancholic black edged shades to the songs.

Even Arcturus and Ulver fans were puzzled with Bogus Blimp and even the band themselves couldn't make anything similar to Cords.Wires anymore - it was that unique.


11. Blazing Eternity - Times And Unknown Waters (Prophecy)

I loved this hidden jewel so much at the time it came out. It was a quick fix for all of us Katatonia lovers (who liked both Brave Murder Day and Tonight's Decision), Anathema freaks who showed affection for some Opeth and Saturnus as well,  and who wanted to listen to new records by those artists every year.

Of Times And Unknown Waters was the song off Prophecy sampler I got hooked on the first minute I heard it. Guest appearances of Kim Larsen of Saturnus and Markus of Empyrium made me wet a bit too.

Still Lost In The Autumn Of Eternity had this black metal-ish feel and it is only now, six or seven years later when I realized this song was a huge influence on me while I was writing the song This Mist Around Us for Consecration. (Sagnet Om) Manden Med Den Sorte Hat was this acoustic piece written and played by Markus Stock and Kim Larsen, while Dark Summernights Of Eternal Twilight was this great ten-minute track of spoken word a la Saturnus/Anathema crossed with Katatonic/Opethian riffing/screams of their long past days.

This whole album was a definitive listen to all lovers of black/doom crossover that Katatonia established with Brave Murder Day, played by these Danes in the desolate moors in autumn while drinking dozens of beers and still getting the riffs grabbing you with their hooks.


12. Esoteric - Metamorphogenesis (Eibon)

Another record that was released at the tail of 1999 which I discovered a bit later. This one was a monstrous motherfucker. This was the slowest funeral doom taken to the most experimental extremes.
The feeling of listening to it was like as if you were gazing at the abyss only to discover that there was not one but trillion zillion abysses. Gazing back at you.

With three songs timing around forty-four minutes, the highlight was Secret Of The Secret, with the opener Dissident being close to perfect too. Only the closing one was a bit too much to handle in one psychedelic bite. Nevertheless, paranoia and insanity never sounded more appropriate.


13. Fleurety - Department Of Apocalyptic Affairs (Supernal)

This record was so weird. It sounded like Frank Zappa gathered black metal heads and made them do a record. With guitars. And saxophone. In Norway.



14. 16 Horsepower - Secret South (Glitterhouse)

This was actually a 2014 intervention to the list. I knew 16 Horsepower from mid 2000's and I somehow remembered this album but it never struck me that hard to listen to it properly until recently

This album is like a gothic country. Darkwave folk. Alternative americana. Bauhaus meets Bob Dylan. David Eugene Edwards is a special kind of songwriter from Denver, Colorado and it took me a while before I started to get into songwriters and the importance of lyrics in songs in general. Or perhaps, lyrics before music, the music being a vessel to a story that singer has. Secret South is kind of a doorway to this music, to the South of the States in general. The True Detective show also helped a lot to feel the atmosphere and darkness of the South. That show is probably the best show I've ever seen and that reminded me of sir Eugene and the proper reason why I should listen to his records again.

The song Splinters is very powerful track, showing the darkness and the beliefs / struggles Eugene has. 16 Horsepower and especially Secret South were surely a starting point for many metallers that took interest in folk, such as Agalloch. Or Ulver maybe. Tenhi? Surely so. Swans too. Yes. Probably Nick Cave too.

Folklore will be another good 16HP album, too bad it will be the last one. After that David Eugene Edwards would start a new band named Woven Hand. Not so folky and country, but darky yes. Yummy.


15. Godspeed You Black Emperor! - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven (Constellation)

This was the first album I heard the term post rock was attached to. Didn't have idea what it was about, but saw this band being mentioned in magazines as The Wire more often (brother was getting some issues occasionally) and being mentioned in the same sentence with Sigur Rós.

This was much like the closest thing to a soundtrack I ever heard. More of an inner kind of soundtrack. This experimentalists from Montreal, Canada married rock, indie smelling strings with samples and apocalyptic moods of Swans. The result was a masterpiece of instrumental music divided into four songs lasting over ninety minutes.

Even though I liked Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada better eventually, that one was only an EP. And Antennas was this full-blown orchestra of what these visionaries had to offer. And the Earth wept in gratitude.

петак, 26. новембар 2010.

the lists: 1999


1. Anathema - Judgement (Music For Nations)

1999 was such a great year. Not only because Judgement came out, but because there were all those excellent albums and new genres that were born. It was also a year that NATO bombed Serbia and the first time I was really scared for my life. That was also when I started to write some of my own songs, putting ideas on tape and gathered some friends to form band(s) - one of them will later become Amaranth.

So, Anathema. Duncan Patterson left the band so the bass playing wasn't that prominent on this one. But the songs were. They got back to the Eternity style of putting a couple of songs in a row, something I loved. The first four tracks (Deep, Pitiless, Forgotten Hopes, Destiny Is Dead) were great openers and the band guided the listener from kicking hard to pure melancholia in barely fifteen minutes. Those led to the centerpiece, which were One Last Goodbye and Parisienne Moonlight, the two most heart-wrecking pieces the Cavanagh brothers ever wrote.

They managed to do it again. And I was so glad. They topped all the lists and all the people who loved them through Alternative 4 loved them even more with Judgement.

I was lucky to find a digipack version that contained a bonus track, Transacoustic. Another instrumental from the album, 2000 & Gone was so nice, warm and a close track in style of guitar playing I even felt, while listening to it, that it sounded like something I could even come up with myself. The guitar riffs were back again loud and the band enjoyed it. The rest of the world seemed to enjoy it too and listened in awe.


2. Katatonia - Tonight's Decision (Peaceville)

This was one of the greatest surprises ever. I already fell in love with Discouraged Ones several months before getting this, but I could never imagine how good would this follow-up be. Neither could the rest of the world.

The cover art was the most beautiful I've ever seen. Every song and lyric were followed by a photo and everything was so picturesque in a bleak and moody way and fitted so good one with the other you simply couldn't listen to the songs without visualizing those photos (after seeing them only once while listening to the music).

For My Demons, I Am Nothing,  A Darkness Coming - all highlights. This Punishment was this perfect miniature that reminded of both Jeff and Tim Buckley, on some Portishead trip with a Gilmouresque touch on that Anders' Gibson lead with phaser pedal turned on.

Tonight's Decision was often described as the Sweden's answer to The Cure, but to me it was just pure liquid melancholy at its finest. Plus I had another favorite band to follow.


3. In The Woods... - Strange In Stereo (Misanthropy)

Wow. This album really fucked me up.

It was impossible to imagine what would these Norwegian weirdos come up with, especially after masterpiece that Omnio was. This was a difficult record. Not only for the band but for the audience as well. Everything was deeper and heavier than the last time. Long gone were the washes of distorted guitars - not that they were gone completely, but they reformed from waves into blasts on this one.  Strange In Stereo had the intimacy that Omnio couldn't have. If the Omnio was a teenager growing to an adolescent era, then the Stereo was this serious man being fucked every day by his job he didn't like, wife he didn't have and emotions he couldn't hide.

Jan Transit's voice was something truly unique. Synne Soprana's voice followed. The lyrics were probably the best I ever read, considering those battles of hate, self-pity and yearnings to be loved, that were blooming in the insides within a man.

I got shivers whenever I put Closing In. In fact, I still do. Cell and Basement Corridors were those experimental pieces with cello, background noise (piano?) and Synne Soprana's strong soprano yell drowned in cigarette smoke. That was the first time I actually payed attention to the background noise and how the emptiness of a room, the no-sound if you like, could create the specific sound too. (what is addiction in the absence of drug / what is grey without the presence of white?)

The monumental highlight of the album was Generally More Worried Than Married, marrying (sic) My Dying Bride kind of wailing leads, Anathema-like clean guitars, the overall atmosphere of the good old prog and uncomfortable presence of comets in the attic (that would be Jan Transit's voice).

Strange In Stereo was a record so special you'd be able to both love it and hate it at the same time, but quite sure you could never ever feel indifferent to it.  They say the same thing about geniuses as well.


4. Tiamat - Skeleton Skeletron (Century Media)

I was a bit shocked when this one came out. I loved Tiamat so much but I wasn't prepared for this one.

Not that Skeleton was a bad record, cause it wasn't. It was great in its own way, but the shift they made was very unexpected. I guess they got fed up so much with the experimental stuff they did in the past, they must have stopped doing mushrooms, only to discover alcohol. It was cheaper I guess and more easy to get. The music got more straightforward and the lead guitarist Thomas Petersson (who played on The Astral SleepClouds and A Deeper Kind Of Slumber) was out of the band, making Tiamat only a three-piece.

The band's imagery got a bit weird too, as they left the Inca style body-paint-glowing-in-the-dark (they were wearing it at the Dynamo '97 and it looked great. Not that I was there but saw some clips) and changed it for some Germany approved PVC. Ugh.

The music got more guitar-based, the songs lost the experimental edge and got more focus on the verse/chorus style. The gothic-ness of Sisters Of Mercy I never liked but it seemed it was working for Tiamat, as the first single Brighter Than The Sun was an awesome track. The simplicity of the songs worked in some weird way too, as it was interesting to hear what was the core of this band after abandoning all the effects, layers of stuff the previous two albums were swimming in. To Have And Have NotFor Her Pleasure and Best Friend Money Can Buy were my favourites, although the closing Lucy was not only about acid and/or the prostitute, it was one of the darker Tiamat songs ever made as well (resembling a bit of Undressed and A Deeper Kind Of Slumber).

This was still Tiamat after all and being a fanboy as I were, I could only bow to them once again. I was also completely puzzled about what could they possibly do after this. Well, the patience was the mother of all wisdom, they said.


5. Empyrium - Where At Night The Wood Grouse Plays (Prophecy)

Another wow. Wow-wow! I didn't expect this. This was the kind of record I always wanted to hear - music played on acoustic guitars with nylon strings. With a dark imagery of some kind.

There's a funny story about this album also. You know that feeling when you discover a new album you love so much, you have to tell everybody about it and share it with everyone. Well, I was in high school and I wanted to introduce a friend to Anathema. He was into Type O Negative at the time, so we swapped tapes. He brought me Bloody Kisses and I brought him a dubbed tape with Alternative 4 on it. However, the B side of the tape had Where At Night The Wood Grouse Plays on it. The next day we were on the break in school and I asked him, so how did you like Anathema?, and he was all like MAAAAAAAAAAAAN this Empyrium is the best stuff I ever heard in my entire life!!!! 

This album could be described as acoustic folk, with some touches of goth. Pastoral themes and paganish vibe could be noticed too. They even went far enough in their nature loving by putting the save the planet - kill yourself! statement in the booklet and printing it on recycled paper. That didn't lower the quality of the music though. The title track, Dying Brokenhearted and Many Moons Ago were the obvious highlights, although the instrumental parts such as Wehmut and Abendrot were my favourites too. The acoustic guitars were accompanied by the choir and occasional flute. Where At Night The Wood Grouse Plays was a great record, the only pity was that it lasted for barely thirty-two minutes.


6. Yearning - Plaintive Scenes (Holy)

I loved this one. They evolved so much from their previous one, and not only Juhani learned to sing in tune - he sang perfectly. There was no doubt that Plaintive Scenes was much influenced by Arcturus' La Masquerade Infernale, though the interesting thing was that Arcturus had black metal roots incorporated in their vision of prog and avantgarde, and Yearning came from the doom milieu.

All eight songs were highlights and I liked the weirdness and the solemnity of the record so much I lent this album to all my friends. Soon enough everybody seemed to enjoy it as well - Yeqy, Milan, Lazar and the people around Consecration.

Naïveté was the opener and the doomiest track as well. Unwritten was pure prog with lots of Jethro Tull moments and twisted harmonies sang. Soliloquy II had this amazing drunk-vocal-solo that Yeqy and myself were always singing when bored while traveling to some venue to play. The guitar effects were also nice to discover because there were so many.

Too bad they went to more straightforward gothic metal after this one because the prog skills this band had were the one to watch. Juhani died in May this year (2010) and this album will remain his best work to date and the legacy that showed doom and goth music could also be progressive as hell if the mastermind was creative enough.

7. Ulver - Themes From William Blake's The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell (Jester)

 1999 was full of surprises and this album wasn't an exception. It was perhaps the biggest surprise of them all.

Nobody was prepared for this change. Ulver were this black metal band that did two pure black metal albums, Bergtatt and Nattens Madrigal, and the acoustic one, Kveldssanger (Empyrium's Where At Night was much influenced by this one) and by leaving the Century Media label they took all the label's money, bought some suits and a fancy car (pictured for this album), recorded this masterpiece and released it on their own label. Applause.

It was daring to take the Blake's plates and make some music to them. The result was a mixture of some drum n' bass, metal, ambient, prog, techno, acoustic guitars, trip hop...  Everything that would marry the heavens with the hells. And they did it convincingly.

The Voice Of The Devil (Plate 4) and The Argument might be the highlights, although everyone should find his/her own favorite plate to feast upon. The only downside to the album was that the first disc was a bit superior to the one following it. At the other hand, the plates were massive and it was surely a hard task to make so much music and, more importantly, to vocally do all the poems/writings and still make it enjoyable to listen to.

Applause.


8. Tenhi - Kauan (Prophecy)

This was such a lovely record. After discovering Empyrium I was checking out all the other bands on Prophecy label because they all kind of shared the same (or rather similar) vision/ideology. Tenhi were next on the list.

When I heard Empyrium were doing this acoustic record I imagined it to sound exactly like this. But Empyrium were stripped down to acoustics and the vocals only and Tenhi had the drums, the bass, both acoustic guitars, violin and a piano.

The cover was also one of the most beautiful there was. The music was so warm and cold at the same time; the warmness of the songs provided some tears being shed only to be left frozen right away like those thousand hundreds of foggy lakes of Finland's December.

Huomen (Morrow) and Lauluni Sinulle (Mavourneen's Song) were the best examples, although all eight tracks were masterpieces of their own. This was the ultimate acoustic/ambient record with these guys singing in their native Finnish, something that made Kauan more exotic and secretly distant. This was the ultimate December/January record for all the fans of dark ambient music, who loved In The Woods' Heart Of The Ages and Ulver's Kveldssanger.


9. Opeth - Still Life (Peaceville)

This was the third Opeth record I got in barely nine months. Maybe it was a bit too much at the time, though I loved this one as well.

The progression this band was making was incredible. With this one they sort of established the sound they would cherish in the future. So, this was a landmark album. But then again, it was only the beginning of this much loved Opeth style, so not everything fell completely into place on Still Life. The production and the arrangements weren't one hundred per cent awesome but the ideas... The ideas were amazing and everybody started wondering if Mikael was sleeping at all and where the hell would he find time to make up all those mighty riffs and delightful harmonies. Year after year Opeth showed with new albums that would always finish upping many metalheads' playlists at the end of the year and that wasn't an easy task at all.

Benighted and Face Of Melinda were those jazzy kind of ballads that everybody loved. But the riffs of Moonlapse VertigoThe Moor and Serenity Painted Death were so convincing that Opeth were gaining fans all over the world. Finally. The guitar work of Mikael Akerfeldt got so complex and healthy at the same time I could only try to play some of the songs on my own. What a fail. I managed to play the first couple of bars of Benighted though...


10. Mr. Bungle - California (Warner)

I love Mike Patton. Everybody who knows me should know that by now, but after this year's Faith No More show at the Exit festival, it's become official.

Mr. Bungle was always Trey Spruance's and Patton's baby long before Mike was recruited from this band to Faith No More. Bill Gould (of Faith No More fame) and Mike both visited Serbia occasionally (there's a rumour that Mike's been in Belgrade in 1996-1997 during the students' protests but it was never confirmed) and they wrote the song Pristina (off Album Of The Year) while being on road trip through the Balkans.

Trey Spruance, Mr. Bungle's guitarist and mastermind, visited Belgrade this May while being on tour with Secret Chiefs 3. He loved it here and told us fanboys lots of Mr. Bungle/Faith No More insider stuff that we more than just enjoyed. Yup, we even drank rakija.

Trey told us it was funny that Warner Bros. even agreed to release this album and gave them budget for it, since the previous mindfuck of an album, Disco Volante, didn't sell as much as Warner wanted and was released four years prior to this one. They recorded California on tapes and three times twenty-four tracks were used in total. That would be seventy-two tracks. Wow! The funny thing was that it was in and cool to have a remix track at that time for the charts, so some Warner-something-executive came to the studio while they were doing mixdowns for Retrovertigo. The guy wanted to take the unfinished mix, only to give it to some DJ to do a remix it, but only someone who was hot at that time, at the charts during that week. It was nonsense, especially concerning band like Mr. Bungle. Trey was like, you know what, this song isn't even finished yet and once we put a final mixdown for this, we'd never connect three mixing consoles, tapes and everything, there's no way we'd connect/line all that again for your shitty remix thing. Thank God there wasn't any dance remix to Retrovertigo. Then again, the perverted side of me would just love to hear something like that. Oh well.

Patton and the crew liked Serbian traditional music long before Faith No More played Ajde Jano at this year's Exit festival. They proved it on this very album by doing such masterpiece track such as Ars Moriendi. That track was also a newborn seed for some sick ideas Patton would use later in Fantomas. It was the highlight of the album with infected yet uncountable rhythms and harmonic thrillers Mr. Bungle were always loved for. Other songs were great as well - you simply couldn't but not end up loving every track there was on California.

There was this great evening maybe a year ago when Sana, Matija and I were coming back from a pub. We were heavily drunk on whatever alcohol and Sana at some point just played California from her mobile. Soon enough we found some fucked up chair standing in the middle of the street, so we used it as a stool for the mobile. We sang (well, yelled) from the bottom of our lungs all the lyrics, all three of us at two in the morning. Song after song it was not just singing - there were air guitars, air drums and all the unusual sounds used on the album sang/voiced by the three of us. It was after that so fulfilled evening (during the morning hangover actually) I realized how great this record's impact was, not on just only me, but on all of us friends.

So the next year's plan would be to travel to San Francisco to meet all the guys we met at that Secret Chiefs 3 show, only to party... For all eternity.


11. Neurosis - Times Of Grace (Reprise)

This was a motherfucker of a record. I knew the band for some time already, since my brother got Souls At Zero on vinyl couple of years earlier. But Terrorizer writers had this one voted #1 on 1999 list, so I was curious to check out where did the band go/evolve from the last time I heard them.

I was never into hardcore stuff or anything similar. This wasn't hardcore in any way, although some of the roots could still be audible on Times Of Grace. Neurosis were never kind of band that abandoned their roots - quite the contrary. This was a mix of everything crushing, be it metal, hardcore, psychedelic industrial, whatever. There was so much fire on this record I thought Steve Albini was lucky enough those bastards didn't torch his whole studio to the ground. Yup, the anger of this record was that convincing.

The Doorway remained a favourite to this day, although End Of The Harvest was also a strong one with the triple vocal attack of Steve Von Till, Scott Kelly, and the bassist Dave. I have to say I'd rate this album much higher in the list before, yet for all the nostalgic reasons I have, the other albums went higher instead. Neurosis got some more masterpieces after this one, that would affect me stronger, and on Times Of Grace they were only showing glimpses of what would come later and all the stuff that was just waiting to get unleashed.


12. My Dying Bride - The Light At The End Of The World (Peaceville)


13. Moonspell - The Butterfly Effect (Century Media)


14. Beyond Dawn - Electric Sulking Machine (Peaceville)

Such a great album and such underrated band. I found out about this weird Norwegian combo a couple of years later actually. They started showing up with names such as Katatonia, My Dying Bride or Ulver, making an alternative kind of transition from doom band with trombone to a Swans-like band with jazzy Morphine-like atmosphere... And a trombone. I heard the Cigarette first on some Peaceville sampler I got with one of the Terrorizer issues. Not exactly sure what was the thing that charmed me so much. When I met Pera couple of years later I found out he was a fan and he lent me the whole album.

The atmosphere was melancholic and magical and the voice resembled Michael Gira a bit. The minimalism and the looseness of the instruments had a great impact on the album as a whole. What I also liked a lot was the moment when I discovered that a distorted guitar lead with tremolo and delay in the ending chorus of Certain Qualities sounded exactly like a lead off The Gathering's How To Measure A Planet - it is always nice knowing you and the band you're listening to do like the same bands. Electric Sulking Machine was a rare diamond and too bad it was so unnoticed.

четвртак, 25. новембар 2010.

the lists: 1998

The first three albums seem to always change their places from time to time, but after much consideration I made a decision for this lineup.


1. The Gathering - How To Measure A Planet? (Century Media)

This was the perfect album for the Spring of 1999. After the NATO bombing, the sun was showing its gleams again and Anneke van Giersbergen made them more radiant than ever.

The progression The Gathering made was the exact same one I was craving for them to make. Even more relaxed album than the previous one, with the closing title track that fucked all the shoegaze ethereal stuff right in the ass with its ambient twenty-nine minute long cosmic orgasm. I cannot put to words how happy I was when I discovered one of my favorite bands broke the boundaries of how long the doom song could sound (without even being doom at all - welcome kocmoc-pok), with adding delay upon delay upon reverb upon delay upon reverb, thus making a shiny new galaxy of its own.

There were also other tracks that were great as much - the opener Frail (You Might As Well Be Me), a very bold thing to do, putting a slowly crawling ballad as the album opener. I loved it. The Great Ocean Road and Red Is A Slow Colour were the rockier ones. The groovy bass of Illuminating and the magnificent Travel were the highlights. The only song I didn't like so much was the single Liberty Bell. Don't know why. Maybe because it seemed like it was made on purpose to be the single.

I think I saw in some ship a version of the album with only a single CD with some tracks dropped off, and I remember thinking that was just nonsense. What the fuck? The band wanted a double album for a reason and they made a hell of a job.

How To Measure A Planet? remains my favorite hour and a half from this band to this day.


2. Anathema - Alternative 4 (Peaceville)

What to say? My favourite band released an album that got them the attention they always deserved.

This album was flawless. It was stripped to the bare bones. So minimalistic it was painful and painless at the same time.

Duncan Patterson, the former bassist, really showed amazing writing skills with this one. This was his last album with the band and the testament he left was so great. The Cavanagh brothers really improved in both playing and singing. They also turned the tunings to the normal E, which made the sound more crispier, clear and lighter.

Fragile Dreams and Empty could be the highlights of the album, although Regret was simply awesome track as well. Miniatures such as Shroud Of False, Inner Silence and Destiny showed so much substance to them, Roger Waters-approved like.

This was the band's finest hour. The Floyd influence was more obvious than ever and there was no one to blame them for that. Quite the contrary. And I still know all of the lyrics by heart even if you woke me up at four in the morning and asked me to dance to some 80's disco music.


 3. Katatonia - Discouraged Ones (Avantgarde)

I love this album so much. It was the first one I heard from this band. (the Rainroom sample I had from before was only a minute long and I got Brave Murder Day much later after hearing this one)

There's a funny story how I got into Katatonia. I was getting those Nuclear Blast catalogs for free, where I could read about what's new. Well, couldn't exactly read, cause everything was in German, but I could at least look at the photos and sit with the German dictionary, trying to translate some of the words. There was a review of this album but I clearly remember there wasn't any universal term used (metal, doom, Anathema, atmospheric, pig, whatever) that could tell me more about the songs. I just remember the final sentence being something about the band sitting at two chairs at the same time with this album and I couldn't tell if it was a good or a bad thing.

Anyway, it was the summer of 1999 and I went to that land of watermelons, fat women and dangerous jellyfish again to buy some more CD's (and sometimes, just sometimes went to the seaside when not being in the hotel room with the discman listening to the discs). So, I was entering Musicland once again in order to buy Anathema's Judgement since it was just out. There was some album playing on the stereo while I was entering the shop, and it felt so strange. I was nearly sure it was new Anathema, so I asked the guy what it was that was playing. He showed me the Discouraged Ones CD.

The two tracks that were playing while I was in the shop were Stalemate and Deadhouse, and those two remain my favorites from this album. The atmosphere of this album was unbelievable. I remember the night I came home from the seaside, because this was the last CD I bought while was there. So I didn't want to unpack it until reaching home. This was the first CD I played of all when I came back home that evening, and it was a long journey back. The vibe of the songs (Saw You Drown, Cold Ways, Relention) and the whole album was a bit similar to Alternative 4, yet the groove was different, the guitars were always playing those weird chords and the vocals were more, um, depressing.

I loved it instantly and I was so lucky because it was already August of 1999 when I got it. Soon enough I found out they were releasing a new one in a month and the rumors were that the new one should be even bleaker and better than this one. Hurray!


4. Moonspell - Sin / Pecado (Century Media)

Tiamat were so great because with the last year's Slumber they made all these other bands move to other directions as well, and start experimenting with electronic stuff, drum loops, strange synth sounds...

Moonspell really nailed it with this one. I liked Irreligious but this album was the first by the band I really raved about like insane. David Vartabedijan was airing a couple of songs and I was lucky that I got the CD a month or two after that (it came from Italy, not Greece by the way). It was may 1998 when I got it, so the sunshine effect was also doing me this warm trippy favor, along with the band's more lighter approach to this album.

Dekadance, Mute, Handmade God, Magdalene, V.C. (Gloria Domini), Eurotica... All highlights. The Hanged Man and Abysmo also. Fernando's lyrics were provocative and witty at the same time. I also liked the грех detail in the booklet (sin written in serbian cyrillic). The atmosphere was dark (goth), yet sensual (metal), a bit religious but slightly erotic at the same time - something Moonspell mastered on this album. And they'd never do it again this convincingly.


5. Theatre Of Tragedy - Aégis (Massacre)

This was the ultimate gothic metal album. Period. Be it cheesy or not, it made the goth metal thing closer to the mainstream pop. And it never went more closer to pop than this.

Abandoning the growling vocals (something all the other bands also did), the shy falsetto of Liv Kristine and spoken word of male-ish Raymond Rohonniy were backed by strong riffs and catchy melodies. The lyrics were in Latin and English and reminded of that much wanted Shakespearean drama effect.

All the songs were highlights at the same time - Lorelei, Angelique, Cassandra, Siren, Venus... Yeah, they like women. Me too. But what's with the names?

I was lucky enough to find a limited edition digipack with a bonus track Samantha that also rocked. Too bad the band went total electro crap after this one, so Aegis remained their best work to date.


6. Block Out - San Koji Srećan Sanjaš Sam (Metropolis)

I was having second thoughts about putting this album on the list, but hey, I listened to it as much as to all the other albums on the list, so why not.

It wasn't until February 1999, I think, that I listened to this album for the first time. My brother got it from some CD shop where they rented CD's.

I was glad that there was some Serbian band that made music like this. There were those nice guitars, nice guitar effects, strong riffs, deep lyrics. The design was horrible though, but that wasn't surprising considering Serbian bands' artworks in general.

My instant favorites were Najduzi Je Poslednji Sat, Protiv Sebe, Finansijska Konstrukcija and Raskorak. Soon enough I started to like other songs as well - the album had fourteen songs and total time of seventy-four minutes, so it was a bit harder to swallow it at once.

I met Nikola Vranjkovic, the guitarist and the band's lyricist, at one of the band's gigs. They were promoting their double live album in Dom Omladine, and it was February 2001 I think. The connection we made was interesting, cause I knew he was producing records. I finally decided to record something with Amaranth and I knew he was the right person to produce it. He invited me to the studio one February night. He was doing mixdowns of his own acoustic record, Zaovdeilizaponeti and I fell on my ass when I heard this track, Svako Putuje Za Sebe, before the final mixdown, on studio monitors/speakers. I realized how everything sounded ten times better, clearer, closer and more intimate in studio (no homo).Maybe it wasn't exactly then, but soon enough I decided, rather subconsciously at first, I guess, what would become my biggest occupation from then on in my life - playing and recording music.

Najduzi Je Poslednji Sat remained my favorite Block Out track ever, to this day. I remember I told that to Nikola while I was at his studio that first time and I remember that that meant so much to him. I took notes - musicians not only liked to hear their music meant to somebody else, they needed to hear that. It has something to do with mutual love and understanding or something.

Anyway, I remember I was having hard time trying to figure out the chords to this song. I knew the chords but there was something that I just couldn't figure out. Some notes were too close, clashing one with the other (that would be half steps) and that meant they had to be played on two different strings. It was either a couple of months or years before I figured it out - the highest E string was dropped to D. That's why those A majors sounded so strange and beautiful at the same time. It was such a minor trick, but it changed all the usual chords so much. I told him that I needed like, so much time to figure out the weird tuning, and he replied in his own witty style, yeah, it took me too much to figure it out too.

I liked the tuning so I stole the trick with the dropped E string and used it later on some Consecration songs - Aligator, .avi, Idiot Glee, Djavo, Vertikala.
Although Nikola played in standard E and my tunings for those songs were B; from low to high, B-E-A-D-F#-A, except for Idiot that had the sixth string dropped to A, so Idiot would be, low to high, A-E-A-D-F#-A.

So, introducing me to this album was also the beginning of a nice friendship between Nikola and myself. To be continued on that one...


7. My Dying Bride - 34.788%... Complete (Peaceville)

What a slap in the face this album was. And it wasn't just the front cover.

The kings of doom and gloom really made with this one every goth girl cry, for all the wrong reasons. Yorkshiremen got crazy and I liked it.

The experimentation they did on this one was really a brave move to do. They were still My Dying Bride, but they wrapped themselves up in a slightly different context. Heroin Chic was the obvious reason why many fans hated all the swearing and the cheap-drugs-free-porn dialogue throughout the song. But I loved it. It was like, we were those miserable guys playing miserable music, but let's fuck with that despair a little bit, shall we lads?

The Whore, The Cook, The Mother remained one of my favorite Bride tracks ever. The atmospheric mid-part with Aaron doing a monologue with what sounded like an escort agency's answering machine, is simply wonderful.
Base Level Erotica was also this mammoth track With those crawling riffs and Aaron, while down on drugs or whatever, still begging/ordering the girl to strip down. The essential detail in any band's lyricsography.
Too bad the Brides got scared off by the hateful fans and returned to the old formula after this already.


 8. Opeth - My Arms, Your Hearse (Candlelight)

The story about this record was pretty much similar to Katatonia's - it was impossible to know only one of those two bands and not hearing for the other.

It was summer of 1999 and I'd been already into Morningrise for some time. I bought this album in Rock City by a wild guess (I asked the guy to play me the record but the CD player in the shop couldn't read the disc). I bought it anyway and when I came to the hotel room and put the headphones on... It melt my brains into a mushy slime.

This record was much darker than Morningrise. The guitars were gritty and Mikael's roars were sinister. During the first listen I wasn't sure if I should feel a bit disappointed or shiver in awe. That's because a part of me wanted the whole album full of To Bid You Farewell's, but that'd happen some five years later on some other album by the same band. I eventually shivered in awe and especially liked the concept behind the record. April Ethereal, Karma, and especially Demon Of The Fall were so heavy and mean I thought that I became a death metal fan all of a sudden. Credence was nicely put like that waterfall on the cover sleeve, while the face of death was Demon Of The Fall.

Lucky as I were, there was another Opeth record coming out soon, so... There were three Opeth records for me to discover that year. 



9. HIM - Greatest Lovesongs Vol. 666 (BMG)

I loved this record when it came out. I remember David Vartabedijan playing it on air and soon enough I bought the CD-R version of it.

Funny thing is that all the world, at least Europe, went crazy for these guys only after their sophomore record, but with this one they were pretty much anonymous everywhere. In Serbia they weren't, at least in Belgrade in my high school, where all my friends loved it and HIM became one of those bands that everyone of us liked.

Wicked Game was this obvious choice for a hit single, but we all liked The HeartlessYour Sweet Six Six Six and It's All Tears much more. When Love And Death Embrace was this doomy ballad and (Don't Fear) The Reaper was a nice cover too. My favorite for some time was For You because it had this badass low end guitar riff and thundering drums that kicked all your teeth out, while the Jim-Morrison-went-gay voice of Ville Valo was waving with a shot of heroin with roses and a couple of bottles of wine. Or something.

What was funny also was that I liked this guy's guitar tone so much. It would be years later that I'd discover he played Laney amps with some fuzz in front of it (probably a Zvex), in B tuning, on a Gibson SG. Hmmmmm.


10. Stille Volk - Exuvies (Holy)

I love this album. These guys really made a remarkable avantgarde album in the vein of Arcturus' La Masquerade Infernale, yet this was not black metal. It was folk music that clashed with metal and well, pure avantgarde. Experimental this was, all the way. For a couple of years I believed this album was released in 1999 together with Yearning's Plaintive Scenes, cause those two records were perfect for a back to back listen (and they were on the same French label). I was wrong, but the year of the release didn't change the feelings I had for this record.  

Exuvies was a very brave album. The band was pretty much unique already on their debut Hantaoma by playing all those medieval instruments, and now they added some distortions too. The idea might sound supercheesy but I liked how it turned out. The best track here was Selena Koronna though, which was purely acoustic. On the other hand, Ténébrante Azurée and Chimères were so good combining the metal elements with all of the others. The other tracks were just too bizarre for the majority of people I reckon, but I fully understood every single break, noise or theatrical scream used on this record. I guess I would do it the same way if I was in those Frenchmen shoes.


11. Massive Attack - Mezzanine (Virgin)

This was also one of the records that I avoided like plague at the time it came out. Couple of years later I gave it some spins but it wasn't until 2003 and the Sziget festival where I saw them live, when I understood them. And not only that - I shat myself right there on the spot.

It's strange to watch some concert on your own, cause no matter how good the concert was, you were there on your own and you don't have anyone to talk to after the gig to share the experience. The feeling stays within you and at some point you start wondering if you tripped out the whole concert or not.

I had the same thing with Massive. They were promoting 100th Window at that time, but the songs off Mezzanine blew me away harder. I also got some flashbacks of the stuff off Mezzanine I heard long times ago. As soon as I returned home from Sziget I relistened to the whole album again. And became a fan.

Angel had this ultralow pulsing/pumping bass that could easily throw your heart out if you weren't with right people. Risingson and Inertia Creeps were crawling under your skin before you knew it. Teardrop introduced me to this lady named Lis Fraser and later on I discovered ethereal touches she had with Cocteau Twins. Massive got me into The Prodigy later and all that Nineties modern dark madness thing.

Oh yeah, and that Massive concert was the first gig ever where I felt some weed would actually be a nice companion. And I wasn't even a ciggy smoker.


12. Saturnus - For The Loveless Lonely Nights (Euphonious)

This was an EP and not the LP, but it was so good I had to put in the top ten list.

When I was buying Paradise Belongs To You I expected to see this song Starres on it, but I was wrong. I was a bit disappointed because from those two tiny samples I had at the time, I prefered Starres than Christ Goodbye a bit more. The sample of Starres I had was only a minute long and it contained the second verse and the chorus. I played the sample infinitely until I got my hands onto this one.

It was a bit painful to get this CD, but when I finally did, I was mad with joy for a couple of days. I liked Starres so much I even wanted to cover it with this band we were making later. It was a band that had only a couple of rehearsals. It was the summer of 2003 and the band should have been called We Die We All. It consisted of four of us, all doom metal fans. Maxa from Tibia was the drummer, Milan who played in Consecration at the time was the bassist, and Igor who played in Kramp at the time (nowadays in Awaiting Fear) was the second guitarist. We never did anything more than those two rehearsals, but the atmosphere on those rehearsals was great. We also covered some My Dying Bride (The Cry Of Mankind), some Katatonia (For My Demons), Anathema (Eternity pt.1) and Saturnus' Christ Goodbye too. Milan and I liked the Christ Goodbye cover so much we decided to play it live with Consecration as well.

Funny thing on those rehearsals were the tunings. Since My Dying Bride and Saturnus were tuned to C#, I tuned my guitar to C# as well. But Igor had some kind of locked Ibanez so the lowest he could go downtune was D#. So we played in two different tunings and still succeeded in covering those songs. They sounded nice - except the Anathema one, I think there was some counting thing at the end of the song that we couldn't agree upon.

Anyway, not only Starres was this great track, but all the other tracks were as well. Martin left My Dying Bride at this point so the violin was missed; For Your Demons had some violins included in it and it was a nice touch. Thou Art Free was this fine acoustic track, although the better version would appear on the next full-length couple of year later.

This super EP also included two songs played live at Roskilde festival, Christ Goodbye and the Rise Of Nakkiel. Both included a complete choir on stage, which sounded rad and even if I was never much crazy about live versions of the songs, these two rocked like hell. Kim Larsen's solo in Nakkiel was superb and I started to like this guy's playing even more.
The final track on the EP was named Consecration and it was full of this atmosphere of solemn dedication and included some twisted whispers from the band too. Milan, former Consecration bassist, was also a big fan of the band, so the name stuck.

There was this cafe for metalheads called Venom. It was the only cafe for metalheads in Belgrade at the time. It was a shithole but metalheads never cared how comfy it was as long as there was some metal in the air. It was some January night in 2002 when we decided it'd be better to change the band name from The Lack Of Motivation to Consecration. The only thing that we didn't have in mind is that the Serbs would have a hard time pronouncing it. Some couldn't even write it down properly. So until this very day we had lots of twisted versions - consecrtation, conseqwation, consecation and so on. So there you have it. We named the band after Saturnus' song. I think the lack of motivation thing came out off some Paradise Lost song, a lyric off Draconian Times or something. Although we all liked Consecration more. It had depth that gave us boners.

So, Saturnus proved to be important for Consecration in many ways. The Danish confirmed being my new favourites with this one. Mmmmmmmmm. Danish...

honorable mentions:


13. Therion - Vovin (Nuclear Blast)

I liked this one so much better that Theli.1998 was a great year for metal music, so here it is on #13 spot. I have very fond memories of Vovin, because I listened to it a lot (along with Theatre Of Tragedy's Aegis) while I was preparing for the exams for high school. After I got in I listened to them albums some more to celebrate. The albums were also making the stress go away, especially Vovin.
The Rise Of Sodom And Gomorrah was the highlight, although The Draconian Trilogy was excellent too. 
This one was for true jewel for all lovers of classical music topped with some mild metal riffing. 


14. Sentenced - Frozen (Century Media)

Ville, the new singer, got more relaxed (and drunk) on this one, so the whole band improved more since Down.
I got this CD the very first day I started to attend my high school and the mood was set right with Autumn closing in. Frozen had lots of highlights such as Grave Sweet Grave, Drown Together, Farewell, The Suicider. I liked Drown Together so much I stole a line from the lyrics and used it for Amaranth's Spleen later. This was, and still is, my favorite Sentenced album. Metallica meets Paradise Lost in Finland getting drunk on vodka.


15. Evereve - Stormbirds (Nuclear Blast)

This record came out of the blue. It could be said about the band as well. David Vartabedijan aired a couple of songs and I was instantly hooked.
I liked the diversity of the band. It was gothic metal, yet with some proggy and blackish touches. Although it was not gothic metal in the style Theatre Of Tragedy were doing it, this was more of a clash of the two genres - the pathos of goth vocals vs. pure metal licks and riffs.
The album was huge with fourteen songs, although some songs were interludes and even a waltz-like song was a closer. My favorites were the title track, The Downfall, Fields Of Ashes, As I Breathe The Dawn and Spleen. Yup, I stole the name Spleen for the Amaranth song from them, although it was Charles Baudelaire's poem it was based on.
Too bad the singer committed suicide shortly after the release of this album. Stormbirds remained the testament of a band that could do much more, yet later releases by the band showed they couldn't manage to do it on their own without Tom.